


Bakanishi and the Beast

by notaverse



Category: Johnny's Entertainment, KAT-TUN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, M/M, Shapeshifting, uke!Jin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-01
Updated: 2011-10-01
Packaged: 2017-10-24 05:52:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/259712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notaverse/pseuds/notaverse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Following my take on Sleeping Beauty, I said I felt like giving another fairy tale the Akame twist. keight_michelle suggested Beauty and the Beast, and this is the result. Once again, Jin gets to be 'Beauty'. ^_^ Please note that while there is consensual m/m activity taking place in this fic, it occurs when Kame is human. Also, I'm going to ask you to pretend for the duration of the fic that Kame is a natural redhead, as he'd look a bit mismatched otherwise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bakanishi and the Beast

**Author's Note:**

> **Title:** Bakanishi and the Beast  
>  **Fandom:** KAT-TUN  
>  **Pairing:** Kame x Jin  
>  **Rating:** R, to be safe  
>  **Genre:** Twisted fairy tale  
>  **Disclaimer:** Not mine, damnit.

When Kamenashi Kazuya dropped out of the public eye at the very height of his fame, all sorts of rumours began to fly. He'd gone the way of Elvis, some people said, which naturally kicked off a spate of Kame-spotting all over Japan - though others took this to mean that aliens had abducted him, and promptly started checking out known UFO landing sites. Some of his more devoted followers declared that he'd ascended to a higher plane of reality, and would be coming back to Earth any day now to teach them the way to reach paradise. Less sympathetic rumours hinted at his having developed a serious drug, alcohol, or possibly glue-related problem, and suggested that he was spending a lengthy spell in rehab.

As for what his friends thought...he had few enough of those left by then.

He hadn't lost them all at once, of course. It had been a slow, painful process, so gradual that it was as if Kame had always been despised by the other members of KAT-TUN, and shunned by every Johnny in Japan.

Well, almost every Johnny. Akanishi Jin was still holding on to a faint hope that maybe one day Kame would return to his old self - confident without being excessively arrogant, compassionate without being condescending...and above all else, Jin's friend. Friends were things that Kame had discarded on his rise to the top, but despite the frequent advice he received to the contrary, Jin couldn't see his way clear to abandoning Kame in turn.

The first cracks appeared in the complicated six-person crystal that was KAT-TUN almost two and a half years after their official debut, though they'd been a group for much longer than that. Jin's hiatus hadn't done much to hinder their success, and his return from LA had been the start of a spectacular whirl of photoshoots and magazine interviews that left them all giddy. By the time their third album was released, they were riding high on a wave of popularity that their senpai would have envied.

And the most popular of them all: Kamenashi Kazuya. Never one to rest on his laurels, Kame pushed himself further, taking on drama roles that stretched him to his limits and forced him to surpass them. He racked up award after award, and not just for his acting. When more than half the songs in a KAT-TUN concert turned out to be Kame solos, he went on tour by himself, eventually releasing a solo album that broke all known chart records.

But Kame's meteoric rise to superstardom came at a cost.

While his CDs, DVDs and shows made more money for the company than any other performer on the books, and everything in his professional life turned to gold, his personal life - what little he had time for - rotted away, turning into dust that settled on the graves of his friendships. His smiles were reserved exclusively for the fans.

Little by little, Kame became unapproachable. He stopped answering his messages, and was always the first person to disappear after work, not even bothering to give an excuse as to why he wouldn't go out with them anymore. His temper shortened to the point where the slightest mistake in a routine, the tiniest of deviations in schedule or a single wrong note, were enough to drive him into a fury.

That Kame could no longer work with others didn't bother his bosses any - after all, he was making them more money as a soloist than he'd ever done as part of KAT-TUN - but it upset everyone else plenty.

The last straw was when a now-traumatised, former Kame-worshipping Junior, still believing the best of his senpai, dared to ask Kame for some advice. It had taken ten seconds for Kame to break his heart, and ten _hours_ for his friends to get him to stop crying, or so Jin had heard.

So when Kame pulled a disappearing act, there were only a handful of people left who cared enough to worry about him - and most of them were relatives.

When the first cd arrived on Johnny's desk, the truth came out. Kame had secretly bought a large house in the country, closeting himself away with a few servants, and he wasn't going to be coming back. No, he was far too important to drag himself back to the city for live appearances, or to go on tour again. He was going to stay right where he was, writing and recording songs in his home studio, and mailing them in. Occasionally, he'd even deign to send a video performance, though his costume choices had grown increasingly strange, and they would be parcelled out to the networks.

The latest arrival, labelled in English as 'The Howling in My Soul', was currently being shown to the five remaining members of KAT-TUN. While Kame had never officially left the group, they hadn't seen him in six months, and nobody really wanted to. They watched and listened to everything he sent them so they could pretend for the press that yes, they fully encouraged and supported their absent member in his solo ventures, but the truth was that, well...

"Kame must have a cold or something," Koki commented as the lights came back on. "His voice sounded really rough. They'll never let that one go out."

"Don't count on it," Ueda said glumly. "The last three have all sounded just as bad, and you guys didn't hear the cd that came in last week, did you?"

"Never mind his voice," Nakamaru chimed in. "What about the costume?"

Junno looked up from his search for the TV remote to offer an opinion. "I thought it was better than the last one. It made sense for Kame to dress himself up as a wolf - look at the title! Not like the last video he sent us."

As the previous one had been a sickly, sappy, sugary-sweet little number, released in time for Valentine's Day, Kame's decision to dress himself up as a mummy, swathed head to foot in bandages, had come as something of a surprise to the fans who had been waiting eagerly for a new PV from their favourite idol.

Jin hugged his stuffed turtle cushion closer to his chest and wondered why on Earth a guy who was making a fortune out of his looks hadn't shown his face in public for months. All the photos Kame had sent in were old ones - he could tell - and in every single one of the videos, his face had been completely covered.

Come to that, so had the rest of him. No more casual baring of flesh, no shirt artfully draped just so. The costumes had been so inflated and oversized that Kame could've been hiding a full-body cast underneath and no one would ever have known.

"Maybe he's had an accident?" Jin wondered aloud.

"Who, Kame?" Nakamaru asked. "We can only hope."

Jin reached off the couch with one long, denim-clad leg, and kicked him lightly in the back. "It's possible, right? We haven't seen him for months, but neither has anyone else and you know those photos are old ones. Maybe he had a car crash and now he's horribly scarred?"

T-TUN looked quite cheerful at the thought. "He'd have to leave the house first," Koki pointed out. "He's been hiding away with his secretive servants since he moved in, and they're the only people who go in and out."

"Don't forget the doctors," Ueda added.

"Doctors?" This was news to Jin.

Nakamaru rubbed his back where he'd been kicked and batted at Jin's ankle in retaliation. "Yeah, I've heard about them too. There's supposed to be all kinds of specialists going in to see Kame, but they won't talk to the press. Doctor-patient confidentiality, supposedly, but according to the rumours the real reason they're not talking is that they're all too scared!"

"I bet I'm right," Jin said smugly. "He's been in an accident or he's gotten sick or *something*, and it's so horrible that he has to keep himself covered up all the time and even the doctors are terrified of him."

"Nah, that's 'cause he's probably a terrible patient," Koki opined. "Making unreasonable demands all the time, forcing everybody to do whatever he wants."

Even the usually lighthearted Junno didn't have anything good to say. "If something's happened to him, I'm sorry, but he brought it on himself by treating everyone so badly."

"I know, but..." Jin couldn't marshal an argument in Kame's defense, not when his absent bandmate had managed to offend, insult, or otherwise upset the occupants of the room on multiple occasions. He didn't want to admit that Kame could have changed that much: Jin still missed him, but he was one of the few.

Ueda nudged Jin's legs aside and planted himself on the couch in their stead. "You're better off without him," he said quietly, pitching his voice for Jin's ears alone. "We all are. I know you and Kame have a... _complicated_ relationship, and I understand that it's hard for you to let go, but you can't force him back to his old self."

Jin fought back a blush at Ueda's words. The exact nature of the relationship between Akanishi Jin and Kamenashi Kazuya had never been fathomed by the press, the fans, or even the people who knew them best.

Unfortunately, the same could be said for the principals, who had been struggling unsuccessfully to work out how they felt about each other when Kame's career had taken off in earnest. Suddenly he'd become far too busy to waste time on the first tentative steps of a fledgling romance; too important to make room in his schedule for a non-work dinner date or a quiet evening at home together.

"But if anyone could make him change back, it would be Akanishi." Junno, now leaning along the back of the couch, had overheard. "He wasn't so mean to you."

"Favouritism," Nakamaru said dismissively, waving his hand. "He yelled at the rest of us for daring to breathe the same air as him-"

"And ignored me completely," Jin interrupted, distress plain on his face. "It was like he couldn't say anything nice, so he didn't say anything at all."

"Wish he'd felt that way about the rest of us," Koki grumbled. "Maybe we'd still be speaking to him then."

"Hold that thought until his solo career crumbles and he comes crawling back to us," Ueda advised. "If his latest attempts at music are any indication, he's gone off the rails completely. I don't think they'll be able to sell him for much longer."

There was a general muttering of how some fans would buy *anything*, no matter how strange, so long as it involved their idol. In Kame's case, footage of him in the days before he went into hiding was at a premium, but absolutely anything about him would sell.

"Of course," Ueda continued, "he's probably got more than enough money by now to keep him going for the rest of his life. He'll retire before he's twenty-five, make the rest of us sickeningly jealous, and be talked about forever."

The others produced a variety of disgusted looks and made their way out of the room, leaving Jin alone with his stuffed turtle pillow, Kame's bizarre video and a handful of bittersweet memories. After spending all day closeted with the choreographer and practising dance routines until it hurt, watching Kame's latest effort was supposed to be a treat for them - or possibly a motivator, a subtle hint that this was what they were all expected to achieve.

In reality, it had been painful. Watching Kame and not seeing him at all, hidden as he was behind a costume, made it even harder for Jin to recall happier times, days when Kame had been as quick to break out in a goofy grin as any of them, ready to explode with infectious, genuine laughter. The bulky, heavily-disguised figure that featured in the videos, that didn't look like Kame. And the songs, they didn't sound much like him either, not with that raspy, hoarse edge that marred the smooth sweetness.

How long had it been since Jin had heard Kame's *real* voice? He couldn't recall. He flipped idly through the stack of discs Kame had sent in, grimacing at some he remembered with considerably less than fond feelings. Eventually he came to one he hadn't heard, the one Ueda had said had come in last week. 'Forgive & Forget'. Morbid curiosity inspired him to play it.

By the time he hit the chorus, Jin was about ready to give up. The song, supposedly intended to close Kame's upcoming new album, sounded as though the singer had been chainsmoking his way through ten packs a day, all while suffering from a bad cold, after having had the inside of his throat scraped out with a blunt knife. It wouldn't have been so terrible if anyone else had been singing - the tune was nice, and the lyrics, from what he could make out, were actually quite beautiful.

Jin didn't think for one minute that Kame's smoking had got *that* out of hand, rumours about doctors notwithstanding. When the song crawled to a close, he hit 'play' again. It didn't sound any less painful the second time round.

By the fourth listen, Jin thought he'd figured out most of the lyrics - all except the two lines that *might* have been in French, anyway. They told a story.

A sad story.

A sad story without a happy ending...without any ending at all, in fact. It was about a man who'd lost everything he had through being arrogant, selfish and stubborn. He'd alienated everyone who cared about him, made himself so distant and unapproachable that even the woman he loved had been driven away. Once she'd left him, he'd woken up to what he'd done, and had been flooded with remorse. The lyrics were a confession: the final words, a plea for forgiveness.

Fortunately for Jin, it didn't take a genius to figure out that Kame's song was autobiographical. A fifth listen confirmed the loneliness, the desperation in every cracked note, and convinced him that Kame genuinely regretted his behaviour. Jin knew that kind of misery well - he'd felt it himself when Kame had walked out on them. The sort of unhappiness that gnawed at your insides and wouldn't let you rest till it tore your internal organs to pieces, shredding you inch by slow inch till there was nothing left but pain.

Being alone had never been anywhere near as painful for Kame as it had for Jin, who depended on the warmth and comfort of other people to make him feel connected - but how must it feel for Kame now? Rumours about servants, rumours about doctors, but nowhere was there so much of a hint of talk about friends.

Jin swiped a copy of the cd for himself and went to see if anyone was willing to admit to having Kame's current address.

\-----

It hadn't been raining when Jin had begun the drive to Kame's large, Western-style manor house. It hadn't even been dark. Now, however, it was both of those things, and lightning split the skies with alarming regularity.

In true fairy-tale fashion, it was a dark and stormy night.

Ueda had given Jin the address, along with a lecture and many an incredulous look. In the end, he'd realised Jin wasn't paying the slightest bit of attention to his warnings, and settled for advising him to leave a message for his next of kin before he went. Jin had laughed and dismissed Ueda's fussing, but after driving a couple of hours on dark, rain-slick roads, he was starting to wonder if perhaps he should've left the trip until morning. If nothing else, he'd have had an easier time keeping control of the car.

By the time he found the place, it was already nine at night, and Jin hoped Kame wouldn't mind having a houseguest. There was no way he was going to make the return trip before daylight.

That was assuming that Kame was even home, though the gossip had it that he never left the house. A large, shiny nameplate emblazoned with 'Kamenashi' was mounted on a high brick wall that ran round the estate - seemingly for miles. Jin pulled up in front of a set of tall, twisted metal gates and double-checked his directions.

Yep, this was the place, all right - complete with nasty-looking spikes set along the top of the wall, just in case anyone tried to climb over. Jin was surprised not to see half a dozen vicious guard dogs come running out to greet him, but perhaps they were hiding from the rain.

There didn't seem to be any obvious means of entry, but Jin's headlights revealed a boxy intercom on the wall next to the gates - sadly, not at an angle he could reach through the window. Wishing like hell that he'd thought to bring an umbrella, or at least a waterproof jacket, he nudged the car as close as he could to the gate and dashed out into the rain.

Rain pelted down on Jin as he pressed the button, and a deep, cold voice said, "Yes?"

Jin wasn't sure how to explain himself - did one need an appointment to see Kame, these days? - so he settled for the truth. "My name is Akanishi Jin. I'm here to see Kamenashi."

"At this time of night?" There was a pause, and Jin could practically hear the man on the other end raising an eyebrow. "You're not expected, and Master Kamenashi does not receive casual callers. Please remove your car from the drive immediately." As an afterthought, the voice added, "And have a pleasant evening."

To say that Jin found this frustrating would be putting it mildly. "Just tell him I'm here, will you? Let him decide for himself if he wants to see me."

"He won't."

"You don't know that. How long have you worked for Kame? Six months?"

"Goodnight, sir."

The voice disappeared, leaving Jin swearing under his breath and fighting the urge to rip the stupid box off the wall. Rain soaked his thin shirt and jeans, plastering his hair to his scalp and creeping inside the tops of his boots. At this point, he figured he had nothing to lose by trying again...and again, and again, until the damned snooty servant - who was probably warm and dry - opened the gates and let him in.

He hit the button once more. "If you don't let me in, I'm going to park out here on your drive all night. In case you hadn't noticed, it's dangerous to be on the road, and you wouldn't want me to have an accident, would you? I'm going to sit in my car, take out my phone, and call every reporter I can think of to come see how Japan's favourite idol treats his old friends now."

"You'll only be embarrassing yourself," the voice warned.

Despite his wretched state, Jin smirked. "Like I'm not used to public humiliation. Look who I work for! I'm not ashamed to do it, so either you talk to Kamenashi and tell him I'm here, or," he was suddenly struck by an idea, "or better yet, let me talk to him myself."

The voice sighed deeply, and said in resignation, "Very well. But don't be disappointed when he threatens to have you arrested."

The line went dead for a moment, crackled, and a raspy voice said, "Jin?"

Jin smiled gratefully, then grimaced as the rain doubled its strength. "Kame? Can you get them to open the gate? I'm getting soaked out here!"

He waited patiently for Kame's reply, but none was forthcoming. After a minute of silence, the gates began to swing inwards, which Jin took to be an invitation. He got back in the car, wincing as his sodden clothes squelched all over the seat, and drove through before Kame could change his mind.

There were two cars parked in a bay on the left of the estate, and Jin pulled in next to them, narrowly avoiding clipping a wing mirror. An escort with an umbrella would've been nice, but he was left to make his own way to the front door. At least that was under cover - the enormous door, with its intimidating-looking brass lion-head knocker, was sheltered, as were the steps leading up to it.

Jin reached for the knocker and paused, fingers poised over the chilled metal. The lion's mouth seemed to be...opening? It yawned, brass jaws gaping to reveal sharp teeth, the ring hanging loosely from the lower set; Jin snatched his hand back in alarm, looking away.

When he looked back, the lion's mouth was closed again. Jin blinked. Was he seeing things, letting the storm distort his vision till he created danger where none existed? The situation was plenty weird already - he didn't need his imagination to help it along.

Bravely, he gripped the brass ring and rapped on the door with as much haste as he could manage without sounding panicked. Almost the second he let go, the doors creaked open to reveal a black-garbed man, tall, dour and stern in appearance. Without him even opening his mouth, Jin knew this was the guy on the other end of the intercom.

"The master has agreed to see you," the servant said, looking down his nose at Jin and making it only too clear that he couldn't imagine why Kame had consented to allow such a pathetic drowned rat to invade his home and sully his pristine purple carpets. "Follow me."

Jin bristled at the disdainful tone, but, catching a glimpse of his bedraggled state in a gigantic hanging mirror, he had to admit he'd be a bit dubious about letting himself into the house. Still, it could've been worse. At least he was only wet, not muddy, because then he'd really have been self-conscious.

Alas, being inside didn't warm him up in the slightest, though not all of his chill could be attributed to his soaked clothing. The servant's positively glacial attitude went a long way towards lowering the temperature. Jin's shivers intensified, and it was with some difficulty that he repressed a sneeze.

He unlaced his boots and looked for a place to put them to dry off. The servant rolled his eyes and pointed to a door off the entrance, leading to a cloakroom with a rack of slippers for guests. Jin traded his boots and damp socks for a comfortable burgundy pair, and wondered if he dared ask for a towel.

"You're dripping all over the carpet."

"I can't help that," Jin pointed out. " _Somebody_ made me wait outside for ages, so I got wet."

"Really? I thought that was your natural state."

Jin sighed. "Can I borrow a towel, please? Then I can do something about this." He ran a hand through his dripping hair; it caught in the tangles and pulled free in a shower of droplets.

If the man's eyebrows rose any higher they were going to merge with his thinning black hair. "Wait here and don't touch anything," he said reluctantly, and disappeared through another door, leaving Jin standing alone in the foyer.

It wasn't a particularly comfortable place to wait. There were no chairs, presumably to discourage visitors from staying any longer than they absolutely had to, and mirrors hung between the many unmarked doors, reflecting multiple Jins, each one of them, oddly enough, with a different expression. One was even wearing a different shirt. The overhead light, in the form of a massive gold chandelier, was switched off, and lamps glowed golden along the walls, occasionally flickering as the storm's rage grew.

Had there been paintings, or ornaments, or any decoration other than the bizarre, gold-framed mirrors, Jin could have entertained himself in their study. Instead, feeling restless, he paced the length of the foyer and tried each door in turn.

Several were locked, but two, aside from the cloakroom, opened easily. One, through which the servant had vanished, led to a long, narrow hallway, lit by more wall lamps. Jin shut that one in a hurry for fear of being caught, and moved on to the other unlocked door.

This one was the very last, tucked away between two especially large, angled mirrors, and there was no way for Jin to approach it without being greeted by his reflections, approaching like a pair of guards to bar him from the entrance. He peered inside, expecting another long hallway, only to find a tightly-curling spiral staircase. Curious, he ventured forward onto the rose-patterned carpet and craned his neck to follow the steps.

This proved to be a mistake, for as soon as his fingers left the door it slammed shut. A thunderclap could scarcely have made more noise. Jin tried the handle in vain. The door, which had opened so easily only a moment ago, was now quite thoroughly locked, though he hadn't heard the telltale scrape of a key.

Calling for help wasn't an option; Jin would rather have died than been rescued by Kame's disdainful manservant. There was only one way to go: up.

The stairs were wider than they'd appeared at first - broad across the step - and deep too, and the banisters were reassuringly sturdy under Jin's hands. The red and green rose pattern continued up the stairs, on the wall as well as the carpet, though interspersed here and there on the latter with clumps of coppery hair. Did Kame have pets?

As Jin watched the carpet, trying to figure out whether or not Kame owned a dog, the rose pattern shifted. The petals danced dizzily between the leaves, swirling and blurring with their neighbours till all the carpet Jin could see was a rippling lake of red and green.

"Trust Kame to buy a haunted house," Jin muttered, more to reassure himself that he could still speak than from any real need to comment on the situation.

He didn't like it at all. Jin wasn't a coward - being in his profession meant you had to be willing to do absolutely anything, no matter how stupid, pointless or dangerous - but haunted houses, ghosts, and just plain horror in general scared him like nothing had since the first time he'd seen Yamapi drunk. Kame's house was _weird_ , and the longer Jin spent there, the more uneasy he felt.

The carpet eventually reverted to its original state, and Jin was careful not to look at it as he continued up the stairs to the small landing above. He had a choice of three doors, this time, all unmarked and uninviting in the soft lamplight.

It occurred to Jin that these rooms might belong to the servants, since they were tucked away so quietly in a corner of the house, and that if he were to go barging in, he was bound to upset someone.

So he knocked.

No answer from the first room, which proved to be unlocked. Jin switched on the light, reconsidered his theory on servants and replaced it with one on pets, which was that Kame must have some very vicious dogs indeed - or possibly, a bear.

Dogs were more likely, though. The room was sparsely furnished, and what little there was bore deep clawmarks. A plain bed, bolted to the bare and equally scratched floor, had scores in the mattress and odd-looking straps set along the sides. The only other item of furniture in the room was a table, also bolted down and bearing evidence of assault.

What concerned Jin the most was how far the clawmarks extended up the walls. The highest were a reach for him, though he could manage if he stretched, and the idea of encountering the creature responsible was not a welcome one.

A quick scan of the room revealed no further clues and Jin switched off the light again, happy to leave the room behind.

No one responded to his knock on the second door, nor did it open when he tried.

That left the third door, the one in the middle. Jin didn't know what he was expecting to find, but he was hoping for someone who could help him get through the locked door downstairs and back to the foyer, where he was no doubt being missed right now.

He knocked, and almost fell back down the stairs when Kame's voice, hoarse and slightly surprised, answered "Yes?"

"Kame? Can I come in?"

"Jin?" Kame sounded incredulous now. "You weren't supposed to come up this way."

"Uh...I sort of...well...Never mind that; can I come in or not? Are you sick, or something?"

A low chuckle floated through the door, not at all like the explosion of mirth that Jin remembered, followed by, "Or something. Give me a minute."

Obediently, Jin waited. He thought he must have caught Kame in a state of undress - there was a great deal of rummaging and rustling taking place. Could Kame have been in bed already?

At last, the door opened, and Jin caught the first glimpse he'd had of Kame for over six months.

Or rather, he tried to. It wasn't easy when the single light was turned so low that room was practically black, and the other man was wearing a dark, heavy robe with a hood that covered most of his face. His hands, encased in thick black gloves, shook as he ushered Jin inside and closed the door after him.

There was just enough light for Jin to avoid walking into the furniture, though not enough for him to be able to tell anything other than that he was in a bedroom.

"You weren't supposed to see me like this," Kame rasped.

Jin snorted. "See you? In this light?" He took a step towards the only lit lamp in the room and immediately tripped over something on the floor, crashing into Kame and sending them both to the carpet.

The carpet, while luxuriously soft and fluffy, wasn't an ideal resting place. Jin was still drenched, after all, and lying on the floor in sodden clothing only served to chill him further. His shivering stepped up a notch.

"You're soaking wet," Kame exclaimed.

"I've been outside," Jin stammered through chattering teeth. "You should try it sometime."

"I told Morinaga to get you dried off before bringing you to me," Kame growled, annoyed.

Jin didn't want to explain that he'd gone wandering off by himself, poking his nose into closed doors, so he settled for saying, "We got separated."

Kame didn't sound convinced, but let it go. "You'd better come with me before you catch a cold."

He sprang lightly to his feet, forcing Jin to reconsider his theory of Kame as an invalid, and gestured to a small door on the side wall. He passed Jin a thick towelling robe and ushered him through, telling him not to come back until he stopped dripping all over the carpet.

Jin was happy to comply. The mystery of the locked door was solved, as the bathroom turned out to have two doors - one from the landing, and one from Kame's bedroom. Understandably, the landing one was locked from the inside.

At least the bathroom was warm, with fluffy towels draped over a heater to keep them at a nice, toasty temperature. He wrung out his clothing as best he could and left it to dry, switching it for the heated towels and rubbing himself vigorously until he stopped shivering. He thought taking a hot shower might be overkill - and besides, Kame was waiting for him.

There was no hairdryer in the room, so Jin towelled off his hair and tried to smooth it into something approaching order before donning the robe, belting it snugly round his waist. It was surprisingly large, given Kame's size - perhaps it was for guests? - and the sleeves extended almost to Jin's fingertips.

Comfortable in body, if not in spirit, Jin returned to the bedroom to find out if the friend he'd once treasured still existed somewhere in Kame's heart.

Perhaps warned by Jin's stumble, Kame had switched on a marginally brighter light standing near a well-padded armchair, clearly indicating that Jin should take a seat. He himself was standing in the shadows, hood firmly in place, and Jin still couldn't distinguish a single facial feature.

Even once Jin had sat down, Kame remained behind him, unseen. It put Jin at a psychological disadvantage he really didn't want, but he couldn't stop a contented sigh from passing his lips as he sank lazily into the cushions.

"You purred," Kame commented in croaky amusement.

Jin tried to twist round and look up at Kame, but the other man moved even further out of range. "Did not," he protested. "That was a sigh."

"It was a purr. I remember you making that sound before, when I brushed your hair."

Oh yes...Kame had done that, hadn't he? They'd been clothes shopping together, one afternoon, and had to make a run for it when a crowd of fangirls discovered them. The chase had been long - albeit exhilarating - and by the time they got back to Jin's apartment, both of them were breathless and windblown, grinning madly at each other as if to say 'I can't believe we did that!'.

Kame's hair had been relatively easy to fix, but Jin's was tangled beyond all hope of natural repair, so Kame had set to work on it with a brush.

"I...may have purred," Jin conceded, jumping half out of his robe when he felt a gentle tug on one of the dyed brown snarls.

"Sorry - did that hurt?"

"No..."

"Tell me if it does. I'm not as co-ordinated as I used to be."

Jin was left to wonder exactly what Kame meant by that as the younger man began to work out the tangles by hand, running gloved fingers through Jin's hair and teasing the curls back into shape. Occasionally, a hard, surprisingly sharp fingernail would slip and jab his scalp even through the fabric, but the pinpricks of pain were utterly overwhelmed by the tenderness of Kame's touch.

"That's better," Kame said at last. "You look more like yourself now."

"I wish I could say the same about you. Why are you hiding from me, Kame? Are there scars under that hood? I promise not to laugh, okay, so let me see you."

Kame sighed, so softly Jin barely caught it. "I can't."

"Why not?" Jin popped up and leaned over the armchair to peer at him, sounding distressed. "Did you have surgery? Was it some horrible disease that left you scarred and twisted for life? Is half your face missing and that's why you won't let anyone see you?"

"Idiot," Kame said, but there was no scorn in his voice, only amusement. "I'm not sick, I haven't been in an accident, and I still have all my skin."

"Oh." Jin sank back down, relieved. "But there is something wrong, isn't there? You didn't really lock yourself away out here because you thought you were too good to work with the rest of us."

"That's part of the reason. Why are you here, Jin?"

Jin rolled half-a-dozen possible answers around in his mind, trying to figure out what was the least likely to get him tossed out into the storm without his car keys. There were plenty of things that he could say, any number of plausible reasons ranging from simple curiosity to offering his professional opinion on Kame's latest musical efforts.

The simplest and most truthful was, "I missed you."

"You must be the only one."

"Probably," Jin admitted. "Everyone else is still mad at you."

"So why aren't you?"

"I am...sort of. But I still miss you. And I listened to 'Forgive & Forget' - really listened to it - and I think you miss us too." Jin couldn't keep the hope out of his voice, despite not wanting to sound desperate.

"You guys are actually listening to the stuff I send?"

"Well...not by *choice*..."

"I wouldn't listen, if I were you," Kame said bitterly, the raspiness of his voice giving the words a threatening edge. "I couldn't bear it. I sound so ugly."

There was no denying that, no matter how much Jin would've liked to. "If your throat's so bad, why don't you stop singing and let it heal? I know you're a workaholic, Kame, but don't force yourself to that extent!"

"It'll never heal. I'm stuck like this, Jin!"

"Like what?"

With a rustle of robes, Kame stepped out of the shadows and slowly drew back his hood, allowing Jin to see his face.

What little of it was visible under a layer of dark, coppery hair that would've done a Wookie proud, anyway.

It wasn't just that Kame was sporting an unusually large moustache and beard. No, this was _facial_ hair in the truest sense of the word. Add to that the pointy, lupine ears that drooped as miserably as their owner, and the greatly-enlarged spongy black nose that peeked out from beneath the hair, and Jin could see why Kame might not want to appear in public.

He managed to refrain from diving off the armchair and running for the nearest door by sheer force of will, gripping the arms so tightly that his knuckles turned white. "I suppose you've got fangs as well?" he said shakily.

Kame dropped down into a crouch in front of him and opened his misshapen mouth, revealing canines far more powerful than any human required. A feral, yellow hunting light gleamed in his eyes as he met Jin's gaze.

Jin swallowed hard and forced himself to keep still. _Never show fear to a predator._

"You weren't supposed to see me like this," Kame repeated. "I told Morinaga to bring you round the front and show you through to my lounge." He pointed to a door on the opposite side of the bedroom, which clearly only had an entrance from the other half of the house. "There's a screen in there. I was going to sit on one side, you were going to sit on the other, and you were never going to see me."

Not seeing Kame. That sounded like an awfully good idea, and if Jin hadn't been so concerned about exactly how sharp Kame's new teeth were - and how close they were to his kneecaps - he'd have shut his eyes, crossed his fingers, and hoped that he was having a nightmare induced by Kame's latest PV. It all made sense now, the masks and the bulky costumes. Because if anyone saw....if anyone knew...

"The door's still unlocked."

"Huh?"

"You want to run, so run. I won't blame you." Kame stood up, stretching out one elongated hand and pointing to the table where Jin had left his car keys. "Go on. Drive home. Tell anyone you want - only the tabloids will believe you. I shouldn't have let you in."

"Tell?" Jin shrieked. "Tell anyone what? I don't even know what's going on!"

This, sadly, was not an unusual state of affairs.

Kame got as close as he could to smiling, which wasn't really all that close, and the resulting show of teeth set Jin's shivers returning with a vengeance. "Isn't it obvious? Now I'm as much a monster on the outside as I was on the inside. Isn't it fitting? Doesn't it suit me?"

His hoarse voice was coloured faintly by hysteria, and more deeply by self-loathing. He might have been asking Jin's opinion on a new shirt...though it would have been a hairshirt, worn for penance.

"You weren't a monster." Jin could've kicked himself for using the past tense when Kame growled deep in his throat and arched his back so suddenly that the crack of bones was clearly audible.

"And what am I now?"

The older man was at a loss for words. What _was_ Kame? The closest comparison Jin could make was a werewolf, but they only existed in fiction, didn't they? Kame could speak, and think, and care enough to make sure Jin was warm and dry - that wasn't an animal, was it? But physically...whether or not Kame could still be called 'human' was impossible to decide.

"How am I supposed to know?" Jin mumbled, more to himself than anything else. "This can't be real. Pi's made me watch a horror movie with him and I've fallen asleep, that's what it is."

"I hate to disappoint you but this isn't..."

Jin looked up to find Kame curling in on himself, making a feeble effort to finish his sentence with air that didn't seem to want to leave his lungs. He was staring at his hands, holding the fingers outstretched as though admiring his nails.

And when Kame's claws broke through the tips of his gloves, tearing heedlessly through the fabric, Jin nearly had a heart attack.

 _So much for vicious guard dogs._

"Kame..." Jin began hesitantly.

Kame turned and snarled at him, curling his lip savagely and looking for all the world like he wanted nothing more than to tear Jin to pieces. The lamp flickered once, momentarily diverting Jin's attention, and he looked at it uneasily. If the light went out now...

The illumination situation, however, was the least of his worries, as he gazed past the lamp to the wall behind it, where something thick and dark was oozing its way down to the carpet.

It didn't have to be blood. There was no logical reason, as far as he could see, that it should have been blood. Only, Jin was certain that if he'd been able to pry himself away from his deathgrip on the armchair long enough to take a closer look, he'd find the Viscous, sticky liquid to be nowhere near as innocent as red paint. He could drag his fingertip through it, smear it all over Kame's empty cream walls like decorating a sundae with sauce, and draw roses to match the carpet. Blood red roses, petals and sharp thorns.

What colour would Kame bleed now, if Jin were to prick him with a thorn?

"You know," Jin said conversationally, so hopelessly confused that he actually managed to keep the tremor out of his voice, "your wall is bleeding."

Kame gave several hacking coughs and came up with a breathless, extremely rough approximation of his normal voice. "It does that occasionally. You have to go."

"You've got more weird mirrors than a funhouse, a possessed lion on your front door, carpets that can't make up their minds, doors that lock by themselves and now a wall that bleeds. Kame, I think you should go too. This house can't possibly be normal!"

"The house was fine until I moved in! Me and this stupid curse! But it's a sign - when things start happening like that, and especially when the walls begin to bleed, it means I'm getting worse. Get out of here! I have to call Morinaga and go strap myself down before I tear you and everything else in here apart!"

"Strap yourself down? Oh..." Jin remembered the bed from the other room. It was obviously where Kame went when he was on a rampage. From the state of the walls and furniture, the restraints weren't one hundred percent effective. Perhaps it was time to put some distance between himself and his erstwhile bandmate.

"Yeah, in that room. What, you thought I'd developed a love of bondage?" Kame barked a laugh, but somewhere along the line the attempt at humour turned into a howl of pain, and he clutched at his chest.

"I didn't know what to think," Jin temporized, finally unclenching his fingers from the chair arms, wincing at the stiffness in the joints. He stood up, putting the seat between the two of them, and stared fearfully at Kame. "Can I do anything?"

Kame's answering shriek was painfully shrill, given the roughened condition of his throat. "You can leave me alone!" He lumbered back to his bed and picked up a cordless phone in one hand - paw? - attempting to press the keypad with the other, but his fingers shook too heavily for him to succeed.

Jin knew it was a stupid thing to do, and if anyone had asked him afterwards, he'd have admitted that he hadn't been thinking of anything at all, much less his own safety. By far the most sensible course of action would have been to go through the lounge door and run downstairs to find odious manservant, Morinaga, and bring him to Kame. He would, after all, have been used to his master's peculiarities.

Alternatively, he could have seized the phone and placed the call himself, after retreating to a safe distance. Like, in the foyer.

What he actually did was grab Kame by the arms and attempt to manhandle him into the other chamber, to strap him down before he turned violent. Some small, rarely-heard-from part of Jin took a few moments to wonder if he'd always had a desire to tie Kame to a bed, but he didn't have time to listen to it. Even with the changes he was still taller than Kame, and had the advantage of not being in considerable pain.

He did, however, have a tremendous disadvantage by virtue of being clad only in a bathrobe. Kame lashed out at him with his claws, shredding the soft towel, and one unfortunately caught the belt. The hard, deadly talon didn't break, but Kame howled as if he'd just had all ten nails snap after having had an expensive manicure and Jin staggered backwards in pain, shock and momentary deafness, Kame's claw still in his belt.

The belt, which had never been designed to survive such brutal treatment, ripped open. Jin yelped and whirled around, taking Kame with him, and both men fell. Kame landed on Jin, knocking all the air from his lungs.

This didn't matter, because when Jin fell, he hit his head on the bedside cabinet. The sharp edges of the mahogany were cruel and unforgiving, and Jin's blood mingled with the carpet's roses as he sank into unconsciousness.

\-----

Everything hurt. His back, his stomach, his head...even his legs hurt. They were being crushed, flattened against the carpet by a Druidic werewolf.

 _No, that wasn't right._ The unusually hirsute man in the hooded robe wasn't a werewolf. It was Kame, and he was crying.

At any rate, that's what Jin thought he was doing. It was hard to make out the sniffles and hushed, sobbing apologies through the thick layer of hair, not to mention the pounding headache Jin had acquired thanks to his run-in with Kame's bedroom furniture.

"Kame," he gasped, causing the once-again hooded figure sprawled across his lower body to jump, "I appreciate that you're sorry but I'd feel a whole lot better about it if you'd just get off me. You're heavier than you used to be."

That earned him a gentle slap on the thigh from the heel of Kame's hand, claws well away from his skin. "You're just a wimp, Akanishi."

His voice didn't sound nearly so strained, Jin noted with pleasure, and the bleak, desperate self-loathing had vanished too. Worry remained. He'd have been happier about it, but as Kame groaned and shifted to lie next to him, he realised why his stomach hurt so much.

The claw that caught his belt had torn through the skin as easily as cloth, leaving a thick line of blood across his belly. Kame had been pressing down on it with his arm, and the sleeve of his robe looked conspicuously wet. Jin couldn't tell how bad the injury was, but it hurt like hell. No intestines were hanging out, though, so he figured it couldn't be that serious.

Kame was still sniffling, wiping his other sleeve across his eyes at intervals, and more to the point, he was still lying on the floor. Jin wondered if Kame had thought he was dead.

"I'm all right," he said softly, because that was as much volume as he could manage. "I'm all right, Kame."

"I know." Kame's voice was muffled by his sleeve. "You're not dead."

Jin had been hoping for something a little less obvious than that. "And neither are you."

"But you should be!" With a groan of effort, Kame raised his head to lock gazes with a baffled Jin, pushing the hood back over his shoulders. "I should've killed you! Do you know how many doctors it used to take to subdue me before we decided to use restraints when the symptoms got worse? And even then, they left covered in cuts and bites."

 _Bites?_ "Uh...you're not contagious, are you?" Jin asked. "I mean, I don't think you bit me, but..."

"I didn't. I didn't touch you at all." Kame was still crying, but as far as Jin could tell, the twisted, pained expression on his face was a smile, and an overjoyed one at that. "When you were unconscious, I didn't hurt you. I...protected you. I haven't protected anyone in a long time."

Jin smiled back. He shared Kame's sense of relief. "I knew I was right to come here. But...um...I'm still..." He looked at the line of blood across his stomach, and Kame followed his eyes.

"Sorry. Let's see if I can get up now." He pushed himself up, using the bed for support, and got unsteadily to his feet. "I'm always so exhausted, immediately afterwards," he apologised. "I'll take care of you now, unless you'd rather I called one of the servants to do it."

Jin contemplated his state of undress, lying, as he was, on Kame's bedroom carpet in the remains of a bloodied bathrobe, and thought he'd sooner die. He didn't have to say anything; Kame caught his grimace and nodded, disappearing into the bathroom and returning with a first aid kit and fresh set of gloves.

The gloves didn't do much to help other than keep the hair out of Jin's wound. Kame's claws scraped at the skin no matter how carefully he worked to clean and disinfect the cut, and Jin's trembling didn't help matters. He couldn't stop himself from shaking, though it was less from fear now than shock, and a little from cold. He didn't think Kame was going to hurt him, not anymore, but keeping calm while his newly-furry friend played doctor was more than he could manage.

"Jin!" Kame growled in exasperation as he accidentally stabbed the older man again, making him jump.

"What?" Jin asked meekly.

"Keep still or I'm going to make this much worse! I'm trying to be gentle, but with you shivering like this I keep slicing you up more." He softened his voice as well as he could, though it didn't make him sound any more like his old self. "Jin, I know this is a weird situation and you're probably scared, but you have to relax. I don't want to hurt you, but if you don't calm down that's exactly what's going to happen."

Jin bit back a retort that damnit, he wasn't _scared_ , and exhaled deeply in an effort to make his entire body go limp. Breathing, that was the key. Slow and controlled. Forget that he was being tended to by a guy who wouldn't have been out of place in a horror movie, in a building that creeped him out just as much as the owner. He was safe with Kame, wasn't he? Kame wasn't waiting for him to relax and close his eyes so that he could sink those sharp, wicked-looking fangs into Jin's tender flesh and have himself a late-night snack. Kame wouldn't-

"Jin!"

"Sorry," he muttered.

Eventually, Jin calmed down enough for Kame to clean and dress the cuts on both his stomach and his head, feed him a painkiller and help him into a clean robe. Kame had plenty of them around, as it turned out, because all his clothing was intended to cover him from head to foot, hiding the coppery pelt that masked his own skin. No more the fashionable idol, wearing classic jeans and brand-name shirts.

"You could paint your claws," Jin teased as Kame explained his current wardrobe. "Or we could dye you with turquoise stripes, or something."

"I'm sure I could start a new fashion," Kame said dryly. "Not that anyone would follow it, now."

"You'd be surprised." Jin sprawled out on Kame's bed, finding it much more comfortable than the carpet and happily restraint-free. He tugged the covers up to his chest and felt warm for the first time since he'd left his car.

Kame perched on the other side of the bed and looked down at him, yellow eyes twinkling. "Please, make yourself at home."

"In this house? Not if I can help it." He looked uneasily at the bleeding wall, clear now, with no traces of red to mark the grisly course followed by the blood. "First thing in the morning, we're getting in my car and we're driving back to Tokyo. This place is just too creepy."

Kame sighed. "You weren't listening, were you? This house is fine when I'm not here. It doesn't matter where I am - the building responds to my curse."

"I must have missed that part." Jin snuggled further under the covers. "Ne, Kame-chan, tell me a bed-time story. Tell me *your* story."

If Kame's eyebrows hadn't been hidden by a fringe that even a machete couldn't have trimmed, they would have been raised. Jin could tell.

"You came to visit *me*, remember?" came Kame's half-hearted protest.

"Yeah, but you owe me." Jin patted his stomach gingerly, wincing when he made contact a little more forcefully than he'd intended, and his contented grin melted away into a look of grim determination. "Tell me."

Looking for all the world as though he'd just been sent to the gallows, Kame placed a bolster down the middle of the bed, dividing it into two halves, before settling down on the far side of it. Jin appreciated the effort, the appearance of distance, of a safety barrier between them, as insubstantial as it was.

But there didn't seem to be any danger from Kame now. Subdued, he wrapped his arms around himself, tucking his malformed and now ungloved hands out of sight and making sure his legs stayed completely invisible under the robe. Only his face was on display, and so miserable that Jin had to resist the urge to reach out and stroke the coppery hair, as if comforting a puppy who'd lost his favourite toy.

Kame began his tale, speaking slowly, dreamily, as though recounting events from a lifetime ago. Perhaps, in a sense, for him they had been.

"Do you remember what an arrogant, full-of-himself brat I was? When I thought I was too good for all of you, that the world belonged to me and I could do whatever I wanted with it. I hated everyone then. I was proud of myself and nothing else, not even the rest of KAT-TUN.

"I couldn't stand to be around the rest of you, I didn't want any reminders of what I'd once been. And that's when I was approached by a Junior. Funny, now - I don't even remember his name, anymore, though it seemed to me then that he'd always been there, singing in his high little voice, dancing his way through puberty with a sickening smile. I thought I knew who it was."

Kame wasn't the only one who couldn't recall. "The kid you upset?" Jin asked. "I heard the story, but I don't remember his name either. We were all up in arms about it, though."

"Doesn't matter; it would've been fake. He'd been cast in his first drama, asked me for some advice. I didn't have time to waste talking to him, didn't care about his drama and just wanted him out of my sight. So I told him so, only I was much nastier about it, and I even felt good when he started to cry because it meant he'd leave me alone."

"You never came back to the jimusho after that," Jin reminisced. "We didn't see you again. Or the guy you upset. We just heard he was so distraught that he quit."

"No one saw him again except me," Kame explained, "because he wasn't a Junior. He wasn't even human. He showed up that night, walking through my mirror, and he made me look at myself in it. He showed me what a beast I'd become on the inside...then cursed me so I had an outside to match.

"I hid in my apartment for a week, arranged all of this by phone, and moved here late one night. Called in every doctor I could think of, tried every shaving accessory sold in Japan, and nothing helped. The hair grew back as fast as I removed it, and the rest..." Kame unwound his arms from his chest and looked ruefully down at his hands. "I couldn't even write properly without stabbing myself with the claws. Morinaga had to take dictation, or I used a computer. I had to keep working. It wasn't about the money, not then. If I didn't keep myself busy, I knew I'd go crazy, no matter how terrible I sounded or how ridiculous I looked in the costumes."

Jin wasn't sure if it was the bad light or the awkward angle, but from where he was lying, Kame's claws seemed to have shrunk to less than half their previous length. "Why didn't you tell anyone? We were so worried!"

"Were you, really?" Kame didn't sound convinced.

"Well...I was worried, anyway. And it wasn't just me." Jin didn't elaborate, leaving Kame to work out for himself who else, if anyone, would have had reason to miss him.

"That was nice of you; I wouldn't have missed me. Not after the way I treated you."

Jin pulled himself up a little, sudden surge of dizziness notwithstanding, so he could peek over the bolster. "It's not like you've never ignored me before," he pointed out. "At least you weren't mean to me."

Kame shrugged. "It would've been like kicking a puppy. I prefer to see you with a smile."

Jin obliged him. "Is that why you let me in tonight?"

"I thought that...maybe..."

"Maybe...?"

Kame gently pushed Jin back to his own side of the mattress, since he was slowly creeping across the bolster in an effort to get closer. "The little brat who cursed me was nice enough to dangle a cure in front of me, then tell me that the chances of it happening were less than zero."

"A cure?" Jin batted away Kame's hand and sat up excitedly, then slid back down when the dizziness washed over him like a tidal wave. Kame's bedside cabinet liked to hit _hard_.

"Yeah. I'd lose the werewolf look and return to normal if..."

"If?" Kame's pauses were starting to drive Jin crazy.

Kame took a deep breath, accidentally sucked in a mouthful of hair, and spat it out with a splutter. "I hate it when that happens!"

The incident eased the tension somewhat, but Jin wouldn't drop the issue. "A cure," he prompted through his giggles.

"Right." Kame pulled the last few strands free from his mouth. "I can be cured if someone can look past the beast without and love the person within. That's what he told me. Then he laughed, said nobody could ever love a monster like me, and vanished through my mirror again. I took one look at myself and agreed with him."

It was hard for Jin to argue with that. Kame's outward appearance was frightening at best, heart attack-inducing at worst, and it was no wonder the doctors who'd seen him were too afraid to talk. Even for people who already knew him, seeing past the animal would be difficult, especially taking into account his beastly behaviour beforehand.

But Kame was changing. _Had changed._ Those remorseful, achingly lonely song lyrics were proof of that; those, and Jin's presence here, in the heart of Kame's sanctuary, relatively unscathed and within arm's reach.

"You protected me," Jin said slowly, turning the idea over and over in his mind. "You didn't attack me when I was unconscious. Why? And don't start talking about kicked puppies again. I'm an adult too - older than you, in fact - and not some helpless child who needs everyone's protection!"

Kame nodded acknowledgement of this. "I suppose...because you tried to help me? You could've run, could've let me destroy the room in a rampage, but you didn't. You reached for _me_. I could've killed you, and you tried to help me anyway."

Jin thought this wasn't quite the time to explain that his reaction had been purely instinctive, and if he'd been thinking straight he might've picked a safer option. "You were in pain; I wanted to do something to help. We're still friends, aren't we?"

"We were something more to each other once - or we were trying to be, anyway." Kame inclined his head, catching the light, and Jin gasped.

Kame's eyes were a beautiful, clear brown, no longer flickering with sick, warning yellow.

"Kame! Your eyes!"

Kame blinked, Jin having unexpectedly thrust a finger towards his face. "What about them?"

"They're normal! They're not yellow anymore!"

There was a hand mirror on the cabinet, and Kame held it up to his face, staring intently at his eyes. Jin, for his part, stared at the hand that held the mirror. It hadn't been his imagination earlier - the claws were definitely shorter. In fact, they couldn't really be counted as 'claws' at all. If not for the thick, coppery coat of hair, Kame's hands could be considered...normal.

A thrill ran through Jin as he let himself imagine the rest of Kame's body following suit, the bizarre slowly returning to the familiar, the face that he knew as well as his own emerging from the masses of hair. Slowly, not wanting to be overwhelmed by nausea again, he eased himself up against the pillows till he was sitting alongside Kame with only the width of the bolster between them.

The other man was still gazing into the mirror, but now his free hand roamed through the hair on his head, resting where the lupine ear had peeked through. It was no longer there, and Jin could make out the curves of Kame's normal, slightly flushed, _human_ ear through the reddish strands. He assumed that the other side was the same.

"Jin, can you see them too? My eyes, my ears..."

"Don't forget your nails."

"Oh." Kame looked at his hands, then peered under the robe to examine his feet. "They're normal!"

"You're changing back!"

Jin held up his hand for a high-five, noting, as Kame's palm lightly slapped his, that the hair wasn't nearly as thick as it looked. If anything, Kame's hands were going bald. The idea tickled Jin and he burst out laughing; Kame, caught up in Jin's amusement despite not knowing its origin, joined him, his laughter growing less harsh by the second.

"What's so funny?" Kame demanded to know when he got his breath back.

Jin hadn't managed to recover his own yet. "Not important," he gasped out.

"You really-"

Kame's sentence came to an abrupt halt as he let out a strangled groan and clutched his throat with both hands. Air whistled and wheezed through twisted lips, underscored by a low wail of constant, unimaginable pain. Jin could do nothing but watch in horror as Kame's chest moved under the robe, bones shifting and sliding against each other, lungs expanding and contracting in turn.

One minute seemed like one year, but Kame's agony drew to a close. "It was worse going in the other direction," he confided to Jin in a voice that, while slightly slurred by his misshapen lips, was otherwise normal, and Jin very nearly threw himself over the bolster to hug him.

He successfully fought off the temptation only because he figured such a violent action would result in him passing out, and he didn't want to miss a second of Kame's transformation. It was fascinating to watch, frightening though it was. What would be next to go?

He didn't have to wait long to find out. Kame was in the middle of a sentence when he clamped a hand over his nose and mouth and let out a shriek higher than any note Jin had ever hit. When Jin opened his eyes again and reluctantly uncovered his ears, he discovered Kame's short muzzle had rearranged itself back into human features, complete with the perfect pink lips he'd had far too few opportunities to kiss.

"Kame," Jin began, but the other man suddenly squawked, leapt off the bed and dashed for the bathroom, ignoring him completely.

Typical. Jin always missed the good bits.

Kame emerged a few minutes later, breathing hard and having traded in his dark, heavy robe for a much lighter version of the sort Jin now wore, belted at the waist and short enough to expose everything below the knee. Other than the hair that Kame had always adamantly refused to remove, his legs were shorn clean. His arms, visible now beneath the rolled-up sleeves, were in a similar state.

The only excess hair left, as far as Jin could see, was on Kame's face, throat, and chest, where it sprouted in the gap in the material. Anticipation coursed through him, an adrenaline high no live performance could ever match. So close, now. So short a time left to wait.

Jin carefully manoeuvred himself off the mattress, headache be damned. Kame was showing no signs of coming back to him, so he was going to go to Kame. The younger man backed up a pace as Jin approached, then planted his feet and stood firm, waiting.

The curse-born hair on Kame's face wasn't as coarse as Jin had been expecting, strands slipping like silk through his fingers as he stroked from forehead to shoulder. Under Jin's hands, the hair receded, shrinking and fading away to nothing, until the only hair Kame had left, was his own.

Kame was grinning like he'd just won the universe in a prize draw, but he broke the perfect curve long enough to breathe an overjoyed "Thank you" in Jin's ear.

Jin swayed unsteadily, wondered if the damned cabinet had given him a concussion, and latched onto Kame as the nearest source of stability. He reached out, intending to grab the other man by the upper arms, but Kame beat him to it, wrapping his arms tightly around Jin and pulling him into a comfortable, steadying embrace. Jin sank into it gratefully, resting his head on Kame's shoulder.

"I broke your curse, didn't I?" he said, weariness not quite managing to obscure the smug sentiment.

"You did." Kame ruffled Jin's hair affectionately. "I always knew you were magical."

"If I'm so magical, why can't I make you do what I want?" Jin complained.

"Because you haven't told me," Kame pointed out, sensibly. "I'm not a mindreader. But you cared enough about me to drive all the way out here and risk your own life trying to help me, and that saved me. I'd say I owe you anything you want."

"I want..." Jin closed his eyes and reeled off a list. "I want you to come back to Tokyo with me tomorrow. I want you to sell this horrible place and come back to work. I want you to apologise to everyone so you can all be friends again. Oh, but first I want you to come up with some sort of explanation to account for your behaviour, because I can't think straight right now and I don't think blaming your problems on a drug habit is the answer."

"I don't think so either," Kame agreed in mock-seriousness. "I'll apologise to Ueda and ask him to make something up; he's good at that."

"He's very creative. So, you'll do those things?"

"I think I can go along with that." Kame trailed one hand up Jin's back till he reached the nape of his neck, delicately massaging the flesh under the mound of brown curls. "I want to see my family again. I want to play baseball in the sun and go shopping for accessories. I want to play the Tokyo Dome as KAT-TUN's 'K', one of six."

"Mmm," was as much of Jin's response as could be heard - less an agreement with Kame's wishes, and more a reaction to the fingers playing across his skin.

"I'll interpret that as 'Yes, I want those things too', shall I?"

"Yeah," Jin mumbled, "something like that."

"Is there," Kame's voice dropped to a sultry whisper, "anything else you want me to do?"

Jin wasn't so out of it that he couldn't recognise a line when he was being fed one. "Well," he pretended to consider, "I suppose you could kiss me."

Kame pulled back to give himself enough room, nudging Jin's head off his shoulder with one hand under his chin while the other stayed where it was, holding him round the waist and keeping the injury-induced dizziness at bay. Jin's eyes flew open when Kame kissed him with the pent-up fervour of so many months apart. He was getting what he wanted now, certainly, and when Kame began to walk him back towards the bed, he had no objections.

They broke apart only long enough for Kame to toss the bolster across the room, leaving nothing but air and fabric between them when they slipped under the covers. They began to dispense with the fabric, but Kame frowned and pulled the robe closed again when he saw the dressing he'd applied to Jin's stomach. The older man's bangs largely covered up the matching patch on his temple, but there was no getting away from this one.

"What?" Jin was puzzled. "Why aren't you touching me?"

"Because you're hurt," Kame said gently, "and I don't want to make things worse. You should take it easy."

"I'm fine," Jin protested. "It doesn't even hurt anymore!" This time when Kame raised an eyebrow, Jin could actually see it. "Uh...doesn't hurt *much*," he amended. "You're the one who should be taking it easy - you've just had surgery without any anaesthetic!"

"Then we agree. Good." Kame pretended to turn away.

Jin pouted at being outmanoeuvred and kept it up until Kame turned back towards him with a sly grin.

"Did you really think I was going to leave you like this?" he teased. Jin's response was unrepeatable, but Kame got the message. "I'll be very careful," he promised. "If anything starts bleeding, or you feel dizzy, we're stopping."

"I'm already dizzy. Anyway, even if I pass out, I'm already lying down. I can't possibly hurt myself."

Kame conceded that Jin's logic was sound - for a change - and unfastened his robe, though he didn't remove it. Having grown used to the warmth of the extra layer of hair, the night air on his skin, no matter how feverish the atmosphere, left him chilled. Jin did the same, discarding the belt but retaining the wrap, and Kame's hands made their way underneath to grasp his hips.

"I never did manage to get my hands on these before," Kame said with more than a hint of regret.

"Could it be that Kame has a fetish?" Jin wondered aloud, catching Kame's eye and smirking.

"I have a Jin-fetish," Kame said solemnly, giving the words all the seriousness they deserved.

"That's lucky, because I think I have a Kame-fetish."

"You think?"

Jin jumped as Kame's hands began to work their way across his thighs. "All right, I _know_. Your hands are cold."

"Yours are warm."

"All the magazine polls say I'm hotter than you."

"Only because nobody's seen the real me for six months. My own servants aren't going to recognise me now."

"Maybe you can sever their contracts by phone," Jin suggested before Kame swooped in and kissed him again.

As long as he was lying down, Jin's dizziness didn't bother him too much, but raising his head made the room spin in ways he didn't even want to contemplate. Between that and the wound on his stomach, he was left lying on his side in order to reach Kame, who was applying lust-tempered logic to the problem of angles.

"I don't want to risk brushing up against your stomach," Kame said, frowning. "It took me long enough to patch you up the first time."

"You had the fingernails from hell the first time."

"True. Still...can you turn round?"

He wouldn't be able to see Kame if he did, but if that was what Kame wanted... Jin braced himself for the land equivalent of seasickness and rolled over so that he was facing the wall.

Kame spooned up behind him, nestling them together like two pieces of a puzzle - a perfect fit - and kissed the nape of Jin's neck. "I can't see your bandages now, so if you start bleeding again, tell me," he warned before reaching round between Jin's legs.

Jin wondered if he'd even notice, lost as he was in the sensation of Kame's hand on his length and the pressure of Kame's own hardness behind him. He moaned, relishing the touch he'd wanted since the first time they'd kissed, so long ago now, and wasn't surprised to feel Kame respond by thrusting against him.

"Sorry," Kame muttered, sounding embarrassed. "I don't have much control over my body right now."

If anyone had a right to be having control issues with their body, it was Kamenashi Kazuya. "It's all right," Jin assured him. "I don't mind."

Kame nuzzled at Jin's neck and tugged the back of his robe aside to remove the last barrier between their bare skin. Jin tensed a little as Kame settled himself in the cleft, but relaxed when it became apparent that his ambitions didn't extend any further. Head injuries on one side and serious bodily trauma on the other didn't add up to it being a good time to take their physical relationship much further than it had ever been before.

"Okay?" Kame whispered.

Jin reached back over his shoulder and squeezed the hand that came to greet him. "Okay."

Time slowed down, after that. Jin writhed under Kame's hand, occasionally pushing back to meet eager hips as Kame pumped him in a rhythm to match his own thrusts, and whenever he thought he couldn't hold out much longer Kame proved him wrong with a few well-placed fingers. He listened to the sound of Kame's voice, no longer raspy and pained but frantic and passionate, and loved every second of it.

Kame's teeth, fully human now, nibbled absently at his exposed upper body in between fevered kisses. When he came, those teeth closed around the skin of Jin's shoulder and bit down, hard enough to mark, though not enough to draw blood. The dual points of sensation, of Kame's teeth on his skin and Kame's seed flowing warmly against him, propelled Jin towards his own climax and a final cry of relief.

"We messed up the sheets," Kame commented as he set to work with a box of tissues. "Morinaga will be scandalised."

Jin would've collapsed if he hadn't already been lying down, and fell heavily on his back once Kame had finished cleaning him up. "Good. Maybe he'll resign of his own accord."

Kame snorted and checked the bandages. "No further bleeding. How's your head?"

"All screwed up - how'd you expect?" He received a gentle swat on the hip for that.

"You know that's not what I'm asking."

Jin sighed. "Let's just say I think I'm going to be breakfasting on painkillers. I hate your house."

"You know what?" Kame planted a kiss on Jin's forehead and snuggled up next to him, pressing a button on the wall behind them to switch off the lamp. "I hate my house too. But you have to admit, it makes a good hiding place. Who comes out here of their own accord?"

"I did."

"Yeah, but you're a special case."

"I'm nothing like Aiba!"

"Not *that* kind of special, Jin..."

Jin lay back in the dark, Kame's breath warm against his skin, and thought about what the morning would bring. A happy ending for them both, or heartbreaks all round? Could everyone else forgive Kame, accept him back into their lives, and agree to forget the past?

He speculated aloud on this last point, but Kame didn't agree with him. "I don't want to forget," he explained. "I don't want it to happen again; I just want to move on."

"I'll remind you so you don't become like that again," Jin promised. "If you start acting like a beast, I'll put a leash on you."

That made them both laugh. "Jin, you know what the press will make of that, don't you?"

"And just think of the gossip! Ryo-chan would never let us live it down."

Kame groaned. "Actually, he's probably the only person I don't need to apologise to. He thought I was following my natural career progression as a diva."

"Don't divas need an entourage?"

Kame reached down to clasp Jin's hand, curling his fingers about the other man's and holding on for dear life. "I've got all the entourage I need right here next to me."


End file.
